"Figment is a community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. Whatever you're into, from sonnets to mysteries, from sci-fi stories to cell phone novels, you can find it all here."

"Welcome to the River City Research Project. With funding from the National Science Foundation, we have developed an interactive computer simulation for middle grades science students to learn scientific inquiry and 21st century skills. River City has the look and feel of a videogame but contains content developed from National Science Education Standards

Toward that end, a few colleagues and I developed an approach that seeks to do
just that: move writers beyond the five-paragraph structure toward a new, more
flexible blueprint that mimics the way professional writers write.

This approach takes time and effort, and we've had to develop many templates and
models to scaffold the skills kids need to be successful. But the payoff is
worth it; these essays are fresh; original; and, frankly, more fun to grade.

But once they begin to craft work that is engaging, inventive, and modeled after
the 21st century discourse they see all around them, kids develop a style and a
voice that is truly their own. And as Aristotle once noted, "Change in all
things is sweet."

Because Cory was in a class that used social networking tools for
writing—specifically Elgg, an open source media platform—other students,
teachers, family members and even the general public were able to comment on his
story.

But with the advent of Web-based social networking tools like blogs and wikis,
YouTube and Facebook, it may be that the next revision of writing pedagogy is
upon us, one that emphasizes digital spaces, multimedia texts, global audiences
and linked conversations among passionate readers.

Moving to a new pedagogy is not easy for many district administrators, however,
as the Web as a writing space is still primarily an unknown, scary place to put
students. But as research is showing, students are flocking to online networks
in droves, and they are doing a great deal of writing there already, some of it
creative and thoughtful and inspiring, but much of it outside the traditional
expectations of “good writing” that classrooms require.

That change is spelled out clearly by the National Council of Teachers of
English, which last year published “new literacies” for readers and writers in
the 21st century. Among those literacies are the ability to “build relationships
with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally,” to
“design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of
purposes,” and to “create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts.”

According to a recent Pew Internet and American Life Project study, 85 percent
of youths aged 12-17 engage at least occasionally in some form of electronic
personal communication, which includes text messaging, sending e-mail or instant
messages, or posting comments on social networking sites

"March is national reading month -- and a good time to focus on some rather bleak news about the reading gap between boys and girls. From elementary through high school, males are reading at lower levels than females. This doesn't bode well for future job opportunities for men or for the overall health of our workforce. I think this is an education crisis that is not receiving nearly the attention it ought to."

"First, on my way to go sit down and read the newspaper at my coffee shop, I got a message from my 10-year-old son, just saying good morning and letting me know he was going to a birthday party today. I don't get to see him all the time. He's growing up in two houses, as I did. But recently, as I handed down my old iPhone 3G to him to use basically as an iPod touch. We both installed an app called Yak, so we could communicate with each other when we're apart."

"We're seeing more and more recruiters use the web as a place to search for talent and conduct employment background searches. This trend is set to increase year over year and I've been predicting that an "online presence search" will become as common as a drug test since 2007."

"Three teacher consultants led 11 elementary school teachers in a study group on incorporating inquiry-based literacy learning in their classrooms. Working as inquirers themselves, the teachers explored ways to help children ask questions about matters that interest them. The teachers' written work about their journey into inquiry-based learning are presented here to help other elementary teachers who would like to go beyond skill-and-drill to tap children's natural curiosity. "